


Blue Velvet

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [33]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Fake Marriage, Gambling, Heist, Real Marriage, Some Fluff, Some Humor, Vespa Loves Her Wife Hours, a very noir-y vibe just because i like the atmosphere sue me, buddy aurinko hold my hand challenge, im so gay, they both get to be pretty and do crime, they play married for a heist it's very good, who says juno and nureyev are the only ones with fun undercover jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28374672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: Maybe cash wasn’t the actual purpose of the mission. Maybe Vespa was just supposed to make an appearance at the table of a cold-eyed gentleman who reeked with all the smoke of a stale cigar and all the grime of paper money. Maybe she was just supposed to win enough of a favor that he’d open the door for their next heist without so much as a complaint.That didn’t mean she couldn’t win a few more rounds first.Rec fill for opaldawn!!
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 19
Kudos: 38





	Blue Velvet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opaldawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opaldawn/gifts).



> fun fact i had to repeatedly take breaks while writing this because i was overwhelmed by just. women.
> 
> Content warnings for alcohol mention, smoking mention, gambling (for a heist), blood mention, threats of gun violence, nausea mention

Smoke hung in the air like an untold secret, swirling from pipes and candles like honeyed words from the blood red lips of a starlet. That underground gambling joint was stitched together from velvet, black and purple where the tables weren’t red or green. Cards flashed like snarled teeth and when hands weren’t doing a little too much to show off their diamond-encrusted rings, they were stuffed into one pocket or another. It was the kind of place where blasters were all too welcome, so long as you kept them under the table and didn’t point them at staff.

From the shifty glances of the dealers and a few too many curling smiles slithering across a few too many uniformly painted faces, Vespa didn’t have to be a detective to know that here, the house always won.

Here, people wore wealth like they could afford to lose it and pay their way out of prison if they were caught. In this hazy little den, it didn’t seem to matter that the planet had long since outlawed alcohol and gambling and vice. The signatures on those very same bills signed away fortunes at the flick of a card or landing of a dice, and it was all the better for someone trying her best to swindle them out of even more.

Maybe cash wasn’t the actual purpose of the mission. Maybe Vespa was just supposed to make an appearance at the table of a cold-eyed gentleman who reeked with all the smoke of a stale cigar and all the grime of paper money. Maybe she was just supposed to win enough of a favor that he’d open the door for their next heist without so much as a complaint.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t win a few more rounds first.

Vespa preferred to keep herself haunting the blurry edges of a mission such as this. She would usually play third wheel and hold together most of the backup plans when she wasn’t charging in for an object herself. She’d played the straight man to Steel and Ransom fawning all over each other a few too many times to count, and until the gambling den, she was pretty sure she never wanted to see a romance subplot on a heist for the rest of her life.

“Don’t fold, darling, he’s bluffing,” Buddy murmured into her ear, then laughed, as if the message she had relayed from Jet’s morse code in her comms had been something a little too coquettish for the rest of the room’s sensibilities.

“We’re in public, hon,” Vespa pretended to protest, though the sharp and pointed glare that had settled over her face like a stormcloud parted for just a moment when Buddy’s rubied lips pressed right below her pulse point.

“Something you wanna share with the class, Valentine?” Vespa’s opponent snapped.

“Can’t I have a goddamn lucky charm?” Vespa shot back. “Get your own.”

Buddy laughed, low and sickly sweet as honey. Vespa could have drowned in the noise if not for the distant ticking of Jet’s taps detailing their opponent’s hand.

“Your lucky charm, hm?” Buddy chuckled, righting herself into a straighter position to shoot a poison wink at the man across the table.

Vespa had tried to arrange herself as a parody of all the other people in the room with cards in their hands. Her blazer was open and her button down was half open and her posture was enough to make a chiropractor swoon. She had one elbow on one knee and the prettiest grift she had ever seen perched on the other like a throne.

Usually, Buddy would be the one leading the game, if not for the fact that Vespa’s skill set was best equipped for the heist that would follow and her face needed to tie the two events together. 

Instead, she joined the legions of lucky charms with arms draped over the shoulders of their partners, with sharp gazes eyeing the game and doing a terrible job at pretending they weren’t. When she had something to say, she all but kissed it into Vespa’s ear, and when Vespa couldn’t quite hear her, she tugged her closer by the waist. Buddy would merely let out a laugh as sweet and dark and heady as a red wine, throwing her head back while their opponent bored a jealous glare into Vespa and she shot a challenging one right on back.

“How did you ever convince me this was a good idea?” Vespa snorted in a hushed return once their company was a little more focused on his cards.

“Juno and Ransom were the obvious choice, but—”

“They’d be so gross,” Vespa groaned.

“Juno can’t play at politics to save his life and Ransom hates cards,” Buddy whispered back. “And you get to wear that suit I’ve always wanted to see you in.”

“Not much suit here,” Vespa chuckled with a glance down at her bare chest, adorned only by a necklace Buddy had stolen for her birthday years ago.

“That’s the point, darling.”

Vespa couldn’t help a gentle laugh, so domestic that it stuck out like a songbird in the city. Even if their opponent hadn’t taken notice of it, Buddy flashed a look his way and covered up the moment with a brief kiss that did nothing to help Vespa’s focus. If she hadn’t already spent years at her job, she wasn’t sure she would be able to stop her head from spinning long enough to remember how to breathe.

“Hey,” Vespa smiled when Buddy pulled back by just an inch, the smell and taste of lipstick and smoke and Buddy Aurinko overwhelming her senses and beginning to go to her head like a too-thick perfume.

“The game, darling,” Buddy reminded her, though from the long bloodstained talon of a red nail running in a gentle line up the underside of Vespa’s chin, it was clear that she didn’t mind glancing away from it for a second.

Knowing Buddy, this was all calculated. She had been a little too passive for a little too long, especially in a place where arm candy often doubled as a bodyguard. Vespa was all too aware that the mile-high slit in her midnight blue gown was as much to play a role as it was to draw her blaster before their opponent might have a chance. The break had also been taken in the middle of a particularly long turn.

That didn’t mean Vespa couldn’t take a moment to lose herself in Buddy’s winning smile.

“Are you done with your turn yet, sir?” The dealer hissed when the man’s icy gaze spent a little too long flickering around his hand, as if waiting for his two and seven to transfigure themselves into something a little kinder.

The man swallowed and nodded about as slowly as Vespa had ever seen it done before. 

“He’s got a king and a queen in his sleeve,” Buddy whispered.

“Your draw or mine?” Vespa whispered back.

“Yours, my darling. I’m regretting these nails already,” Buddy chuckled. “I think I ought to be rid of them as soon as possible. What do you think?”

“I don’t know if you two are from around here, but it’s not considered polite to have a conversation with someone else at the table,” the opponent spat.

“It’s not particularly polite where we’re from, either,” Buddy returned coolly. “We simply don’t care.”

“Hey, lady—”

Vespa drew before the man could even flinch.

“That’s my goddamned wife you’re talking to,” she interrupted.

Buddy sat up a little straighter. Thankfully, she didn’t have to do a thing to wrestle down that smile that looked the way a skipped heartbeat felt. She looked like an empress, even if she was using Vespa’s now half-asleep leg as a throne. Maybe Vespa was hunched, using her other knee as a rest for the blaster she pointed under the table, but that didn’t mean she felt something a little more confident rear its head in her chest and flicker in her eye when Buddy cast that grin upon her.

“My apologies, ma’am,” their opponent nodded.

“Show the dealer what you’ve got in your sleeve,” Vespa continued.

The man swallowed and discarded both his hand and the replacement cards onto the table. The dealer raised an eyebrow, though Vespa was fairly sure the surprise was a display.

“You know, there’s quite a fine for that,” Buddy beamed.

“And if I know you and just how many times you’ve lost before, you’re either gonna have to lose half your jewelry or one of your assets to pay up,” Vespa added.

“What the hell do you want?”

“A favor,” Buddy returned, voice as smooth as red velvet.

“My people are gonna cover your fee and pay up a little less than half of what you lost,” Vespa explained. “You’re gonna meet us at the Costello bank at the time and date that comes with the transaction or the reporters are gonna find out just how you lost your summer home to me and my lucky charm.”

“You—you cheater—”

“Bold words from the moron with cards up his sleeves,” Vespa snorted mirthlessly. “Glass houses and all that. You’d better watch yourself, asshole.”

Their opponent could do little more than seethe while Buddy took Vespa by the hand to lead her to her feet, though not before sweeping it up to her lips for a gentle kiss. In a blur, the business was done, the dealer all the while averting his eyes and tapping his toes until he could continue going about his day.

They’d won, of course. That had always been the plan. Vespa couldn’t pretend it felt a little sweeter to have done it in style.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker that might have been Jet sneaking out one of many back exits. Buddy nodded absentmindedly, as if he had told her such into her comms.

“The car’s going to meet us out front shortly,” she murmured, this time not needing to hide the ear-side whisper with a chuckle, for her million dollar smile was still tearing through the room.

“So what does that mean for us?”

“You get to hang on my arm and look pretty, darling,” Buddy chuckled, holding out her forearm as they walked and pulling Vespa affectionately close when she took it.

“Oh, I’m hanging on your arm?”

Buddy grinned.

“You did wonderfully,” she smiled. “Especially for someone who spends so much time complaining about our colleagues—”

“Hey, that’s not fair. I didn’t jeopardize the mission over my goddamn goo goo eyes,” Vespa snorted.

“What was it that you said earlier this evening? Something about glass houses, I believe,” Buddy laughed, the sound loosing itself upon the hazy air of city night when the too-warm gambling den gave way to the chilling breeze of the streets.

On any other day, Vespa would have hated it. It was a little too cold for her outfit and she still had sweat pooling in the divot of her collarbone from the gambling room. The streets were just quiet enough to feel unnerving, and yet, cars still insisted on screeching by and shattering the almost-peace anyway. It didn’t help anything that when she looked up, she could hardly make out a single star against the city’s nocturnal glow.

However, Buddy had gone from holding her arm to squeezing her hand, and distantly, the familiar rumble of the Ruby 7’s engine drew near. If Vespa strained her ears enough, it almost sounded like home.

“Thinking about something, darling?”

Vespa turned her head to catch Buddy’s eye, bright with sodium street light and fondness.

“You know, I think I can kinda see the appeal in being someone’s wife on a heist,” Vespa chuckled. “Don’t think I’m ever gonna tell Steel that, though.”

“As opposed to real life, I’m assuming?”

“It’s different,” Vespa snorted. “Kinda fun. We’ve gotta do this more often.”

“And save you all the fun of calling Juno a—what was it—” Buddy chuckled, breaking off for Vespa to groan. “Smitten barfbag?”

“He was being a smitten barfbag,” Vespa protested.

“Well,” Buddy smiled as if laughing at an inside joke she didn’t feel the need to share. “Whether or not I found it funny is entirely classified.”

“God, I love you,” was all Vespa could manage to laugh in return.

“I love you too, darling,” Buddy returned with a squeeze of her hand.

Buddy Aurinko was the kind of woman who could raise armies with a wink and a snap of her fingers. Whether she wore a designer gown and blood red lipstick or a set of pajamas she had long since stolen from Vespa, she had the kind of smile one stumbles across once or twice in a lifetime if they’re lucky.

Somehow, Vespa was lucky enough to have that smile fixed on her.

With the Ruby 7 getting audibly closer, Vespa took a deep breath, smelling the city air, tinged with the last of Buddy’s perfume as it lingered around her neck like a fur. She could have lived forever in that moment, a bitter one turned sweet just by the quality of the company.

If she had a little less pride, she might take this as a cue to sympathize with Steel instead of mocking him. However, with Buddy Aurinko beaming at her and squeezing her hand, any urge towards empathy had its work cut out for it.

**Author's Note:**

> wahoo!! im a giant lesbian
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill hold your hand
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22!!


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